


Near Alternates

by PrairieDawn



Series: Extended Meatballverse [5]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Meatballverse, Mild Angst, spackle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: It occurs to Leonard that the most likely near alternate universe for Jim, and Spock and himself to have ended up in is one he had hoped never to see again.
Series: Extended Meatballverse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1100532
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37





	Near Alternates

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Prompt: "Mirror Universe" "McCoy" and the word "mood"
> 
> Experiment in write fast, barely revise, post the same day. Spackle occurring during Chapter 10 of Meatball Surgery Shouldn't be Green.

Leonard rested his back on the wall in the narrow hallway between the operating room and Post Op, his left leg bent so the foot was planted on the wall, his arms crossed so his fingers could beat a rapid rhythm against his elbows. Jim’s awakening had brightened his mood, but the words “near parallel” had dropped an ice cold rock into his gut. They were stranded on a displaced Earth, a brand new one unlike Terra Roma or Omega Four, which were centuries-old displacements. They might be sixty light years from the Earth where he’d grown up, or they could be on a near parallel, a nothingth of uncrossable distance from home.

He’d gotten up close and personal with a near parallel a few years ago and that experience had been more than enough for him--a world in which his best friend was a Machiavellian and brutal monster, his other best friend would violate him for information as soon as look at him, and he himself, judging from the state of that mirror self’s Sickbay, was likely no better than either of them.

God help them if that’s where they’d ended up. 

Back in Post Op, Jim was asleep with Spock meditating beside him. O’Reilly slouched in a chair, snoring softly, his head resting against the back wall and his wire rims askew on his face. Leonard pulled out his medscanner to check on Jillson. The young man’s fever was down a degree and his blood pressure looked better. On a whim, he ran the device over O’Reilly’s sleeping form. Exhaustion, electrolytes out of balance, but not dangerously so.

The kid woke, feet slamming awkwardly to the floor while he straightened his hat and glasses. “Is he, is he okay?” O’Reilly stammered.

“He’s looking better. You’ll be no good to anyone without a rest. Let’s get you off to bed.”

O’Reilly stood, stretched, and shuffled toward the door. “You sure nothing’s wrong?:

“Nothing more than the usual. Off to bed with you. I’ll keep an eye.”

The screen door swung shut on its spring loaded hinges, not loudly, but with enough of a tap to rouse Spock from meditation. “Doctor,” Spock said.

“You ought to go to bed, too. I’ll look after Jim.”

“I am not in need of sleep at this time.”

“As our gracious host would say, mule fritters. You’re still anemic and trying to heal an amputation.”  
Spock studied him briefly. The intensity of his gaze made Leonard need to look away. “You are troubled.”

Leonard slapped the pipe at the foot of Jillson’s bed. “Tell me about it. If we’re back there I don’t know what we’re going to do. Caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“By there I assume you mean the alternate universe in which we encountered the Terran Empire.”

Leonard nodded, a little more sharply than he intended. “I know I’m not being rational.”

“Perhaps. I confess a certain illogical preoccupation with that unpleasant possibility as well. I do not know how I would respond if faced with my counterpart, and I do not desire the opportunity to find out.”

“Much as I never, ever want to run into that face again, I’m more worried about these good people. They don’t deserve what that Empire would probably do to this planet. They might be better off taking their chances with the Klingons.”

“It is entirely possible that the Klingons of that universe are benign.”

Leonard felt his lips quirk upward. “Spock.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you distracted me from ordering your green ass to bed. You can stay here with Jim, but you need to sleep.”

Spock slid two fingers over the pulse point of Jim’s wrist. After a pause, he sat back up in his chair. “Very well, Doctor.”

“Very well, my ass. I’ve got Post Op duty until oh six hundred. I’ll have my eye on you. Both of you.”

Spock carefully maneuvered his way off the chair at Jim’s side and onto the bed. Once he was lying down, Leonard tucked a blanket around him, crossed the room to a stack of clean spares, and spread two more blankets over that. Blood loss would make the Vulcan much more sensitive to temperature changes, and Korean nights were chilly in April.

Spock’s eyes were closed, but there was no way he was asleep yet. “You look much better without the beard,” he muttered, just loud enough for Vulcan ears to hear.

He walked over to the little desk in the corner where the staff set hot charts and cold coffee. Just before he sat down, he heard, “Jim agrees.”

I’ll just bet he does, Leonard thought. He put his feet up on the desk, took a swig of cold coffee, and fished around for the book he’d seen Ginger reading earlier. Trashy romance novel, it looked like. It was going to be a long night.


End file.
